DHS Science Department Holds Rally to Test Biometric Security Systems

The Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate has hosted the first Biometric Technology Rally, which featured tests of scanning technologies with face and face/iris recognition.

The 10-day event aimed to mitigate biometric flaws at security checkpoints. It took place at the directorate’s Maryland Test Facility in March and had 364 participants, DHS said Friday.

The MdTF evaluated the biometric systems’ capacity to capture and match images from a diverse sample set within time constraints observed in the real world.

The facility developed a standard security checkpoint process to conduct these tests that recorded 4,368 system assessments, 7,500 images, over 2,000 iris identifications and over 15,000 face identifications.

“The results of this rally will help inform the focus of future MdTF testing events, and the team will walk away with a number of ideas about how to make the next rally even more effective,” said Arun Vemury, program manager and biometric technology lead at DHS S&T.

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